Reflective Analysis of Student Work : Improving Teaching Through Collaboration

"Any school wishing to maximize conditions for their staff to grow professionally from within will want to acquire, test, and incorporate the suggestions in this book."
Arthur L. Costa, Emeritus Professor of Education
California State University, Sacramento

Improve the quality of your instruction through this innovative form of professional development!

In an era of structured trainings and top-down mandates, this visionary guide offers a new approach, solidly founded on research, which empowers teachers to take charge of the learning process. It encourages a shift from isolation to collaboration, from imparting to participating, and from content-focused to process-oriented learning, in order to simultaneously boost student achievement and teacher′s professional development.

Bringing the focus back to teaching students how to learn, the author promotes a process of teamwork and modeling that challenges educators to reflect on their curriculum, instruction, and assessment techniques to collaboratively work to improve them.

Highlights include:

• Ideas on how to powerfully engage students by becoming a co-learner and facilitator in the classroom
• Tips for analyzing student work with the help of co-workers, and how to incorporate these findings into the lesson plan cycle
• Adaptable schedules for sessions that last one-half hour to several hours—perfect for time-strapped teachers
• Calendar of collaborative professional development activities to last the entire school year